The process for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs) is a complex one, involving many distinct steps. In addition to curing, wire bonding, and many other back-end process steps, one or more plasma processes may occur, such as when the interlayer dielectric (ILD) layers or the metal patterns are formed. During the plasma process, the insulators (gates) of the many transistors making up the ICs may unintentionally experience currents (charges) and voltages (potential) from the plasma. These unwanted currents or voltages may damage or destroy the IC being manufactured. As a result, protection devices may be coupled to the at-risk devices (protected devices), such that, during the plasma processes, the device gates do not build up too much current or voltage. A single IC may have tens of thousands of protection devices.
The protection devices are made up of transistors, like the devices they are designed to protect (the protected devices). The transistors in the protection devices possess characteristics found in other transistors, namely, they may leak current during circuit operation. For some applications, such leakage may be undesirable.